Creativity Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Creativity

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Posted on December 30, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Spirituality
4 Comments

Nothing spiritually wonderous happened to me until my early fifties. Living with love of my life and our two beautiful and bright daughters, and a decade of teaching behind me I still felt something significant missing in my life. But I did not know what it was. The more I read and wrote, the more yearning I felt for the unknown. What was I searching for that felt absolutely real, true, deeper?  I had discovered that at the core of major world religions is the lesson that to live a life of awareness, joy and contentment is to live simply and fully. A whole life, a holy life. The lesson seemed simple but was difficult to cultivate. Eventually, with enlightened audacity I developed a regimen of five practices with which you...

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Thursday, December 18, 2025

Posted on December 17, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Reading, Spirituality, Walking
4 Comments

The final month of our arduous yet calm and creativity stimulating, mind clarifying, heart-warming year-long journey has arrived. I hope the year provided you perspectives on every significant aspect of your life: physical, intellectual, creative, and spiritual. That it underlined how fundamental sitting in stillness, spontaneous writing, walking, reading and creating help you make a strong bond with yourself and strengthen emotional bonds with family and friends. You have almost finished reading, Unblock Your Creative Flow. This was the first rough look or the clearer second read. Starting from the New Year we’ll begin once again to explore the gift of each day as it unfurls, partly as we plan it and partly to let the universe lead us. With pure intentions, determination, patience, make certain that the combined habits of meditation, journaling, reading,...

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Tuesday, 16 December 2025

Posted on December 15, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Walking
6 Comments

Meditation, journaling, walking and creative practices are built one day at a time. We come out of the fog of living in the past and see how we are now and could become in the future. We move closer to our true self, witnessing ourselves in meditation, noticing our strengths, and discovering things we can improve while pouring out our thoughts and emotions in our journal.  You’ve come a long way at your own speed. And you continue to mindfully pace your creative and spiritual path. Think about the goals you have reached this year. Thanks to your practice, you are kinder to yourself, compassionate with others, and more forgiving, generous and filled with gratitude. Look around you, take a few deep breaths and be thankful for being HERE NOW. You have...

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Thursday, December 4, 2025

Posted on December 3, 2025
in Creativity, Journaling, Meditation, Nonverbal Activities, Writing
4 Comments

Our daughter, Zoon's Indoor Plants Writing Meditation Practice has five disciplines. Here are the taglines for each. Meditation: Align with the universe Journaling: Lighter mind, kinder heart Reading: Author as revered teacher Nonverbal activities: Letting imagination go wildCreativity: Get into the zone Writing Meditation Practice is painstakingly slow but measurable. Progress is not a straight line. But in meditation and journaling the practitioner feels it. You watch yourself changing from mindless to mindful with increased self-understanding. In turn, self-understanding increases self-compassion and kindness toward others. No outsider could or is keeping score of your inner self. With a year of practice you notice personal insecurities and fears slowly alleviate. You feel the cacophony of thoughts settling down, the physical discomfort changing to a relaxed body, and an indifferent heartmind turning kind and wise. You stop judging yourself and learn to live...

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Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Posted on November 24, 2025
in #Reading Poetry, Being in Nature, Creativity, Spirituality
4 Comments

It is said, the common characteristics of individuals who live in mountains, near rivers or oceans, in the wilderness and love to spend time in nature overlap with the traits of those who call themselves spiritual. These traits are kindness, peacefulness, compassion, and contentment with what is. These folks do not criticize or judge. They have motivating and kind words for others, and operate with an intention of making the world a better place.  One may ask, why is this so? What has nature to do with spirituality? Spirituality relates to people’s emotions and beliefs rather than their thinking or physical self and surroundings. Upon closer analysis six spiritual themes emerge: feeling of connection with something more than oneself, inner vibrancy, presence, joy, gratitude, and compassion. The data shows that those...

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Thursday, November 13, 2025

Posted on November 12, 2025
in #Masterpieces of World Art, Creativity, Spirituality
4 Comments

A photograph of a great work of art is a mere memory. In no way can it have the same impact as an in-person encounter with the original artwork. I experienced this when we visited the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy. I had seen the reproductions of Michelangelo’s marble statue of David but was clueless about how I would react to that masterpiece. A kilometer from the museum, in the Piazza della Signoria, stands a statue of David that I mistook to be the original. The resemblance was uncanny. I looked at it from all sides, appreciating the work, but I did not feel its power – the youthful beauty or the vigor written about in essays that I had read for its preparation.  Then we entered the museum where we were magnetized by many works of Michelangelo....

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Thursday, October 16, 2025

Posted on October 15, 2025
in Creativity, Meditation, Reading, Writing
6 Comments

Once you dedicate yourself to something you feel passionately about, when follow your calling, the universe listens. It augments the skills required for you to do that you deeply desire to do. So stay in touch with your Authentic Self and pay heed to its whispers.   I experienced the guidance of my Inner Self in the spring of 2009. For years, I had been meditating, journaling and writing alone at home. I had reaped the benefits of these two practices in heaps and wanted to share them with other writers who were struggling with isolation and dithering before the creative flow would stream forth. At the same time an urge to invite writers to meditate and write together repeatedly nudged me.  I hesitated. What would I say? Who would want to meditate...

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Thursday, June 12, 2025

Posted on June 11, 2025
in #Reading Poetry, Creativity, Imagination, Reading
4 Comments

In Praise of PoetryPoetry grows on us. Reading poems aloud can turn into an enjoyable exercise, but more importantly, it helps refine our thinking and enhances journaling. You may not want to become a poet but you learn to have a grasp on words and how they have power to stir deep feelings and emotions in you that you may not have experienced before.  Reading poetry is a private, intimate experience. It widens our emotional space by stirring self-examination. It helps us deal with paradoxical emotions we don’t understand. Poems have messages that speak directly to us. When a poem links with our heart, it feels like the poet has shared a secret. The relationship between the poet, the poem, and the listener inspires awe and delight. A boy reading sitting...

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Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Posted on April 7, 2025
in Creativity, Daily Reflections 2025, Imagination, Reading
4 Comments

Whether reading for pleasure or personal growth, what you enjoy depends on your interests and experiences. What you choose to read is as unique as what you enjoy eating or wearing. When you select a book to read, what are you seeking? Pleasure, growth, transformation? It is not what you choose to read but what happens to you when you are absorbed in reading – that pleasurable feeling of forgetting who and where you are, temporarily experiencing life through someone else’s perspective! I read to be entertained, to learn, to adventure into unknown worlds where my heart is slashed, where my guts are punched, or a brick falls on my head. With each book I read, my emotional and intellectual sensibilities emerge and deepen. In 2003, a group of doctors in Wales...

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Day 360, Monday, December 30, 2024

Posted on December 29, 2024
in Creativity
2 Comments

Reflections Inspiration The final morning of our arduous yet fulfilling, calming, heart-widening year-long journey has arrived. Tomorrow we return to where we started, but with our minds sharpened and hearts wide open. I hope the year provided you perspectives on every significant aspect of your life: physical, emotional, intellectual, creative, and spiritual. It underlined how fundamental regular writing, reading, and spiritual matters are for your well-being, and how important emotional bonds are in familial relations and friendships. You have finished reading the book. That was the first rough look. Now you may start all over again. From tomorrow, explore the gift of each day as it unfurls, partly as you know and partly in some other way. But one thing is certain – the habits of meditation, journaling, reading, writing, and walking have now become...

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